And now a encrypted message from my cat

I should let my cat write my paper. That is the conclusion I reached tonight, as I sweated over grammar and fretted over punctuation. As I was stewing, my cat jumped onto the desk, sat on the keyboard, and typed a series of numbers with his butt. It looked like it could have been a sequence of data from the latest Mars rover, which landed successfully over the weekend. For all I know, he works for NASA. It is possible my cat could be a lot smarter than he looks. Then again, probably not.

Still, I wonder if my butt could do any better. I've never actually tried typing with my butt. I'm not sure I would have much control. In the way of all geniuses and Olympic athletes, my cat made it look so easy. He wasn't even watching what he was typing—talk about touch-typing. More like blind, fingerless touch-typing. Typing by instinct. Writing elevated to the level of I don't care what I am writing, talk to the butt.

I doubt I could do any better, really. My butt is a double-wide trailer compared to his petite derriere. Plus his butt is so... furry. (I guess if I live long enough my butt might grow furry too, sort of like my upper lip is doing.) I'm not sure if furriness has an effect on typing ability. I'll let you know if I ever find out.

Oh, oh, here he comes again. I think he might have something to add to this blog. I will leave it to your superior intelligence to interpret the following syntactical string:

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm0.00000012222222222222112111

Malfunction alert: the temperature has fallen below the unit's optimum range

My next dissertation course starts tomorrow. This was to have been my last course, the final one of 27 courses, after six-plus years and the equivalent of a down payment on a modest fixer-upper in SE Portland. In a perfect world, I would be finishing my dissertation in the next three months and bidding this online educational nightmare adieu. No such luck. I'm still wrestling with my concept paper. Here I am, still on the launching pad. But I have hope. I think the paper is starting to take on a shape that will demonstrate I am ready to make the leap from student to scholar.

I made good progress yesterday, when the air in my apartment was a sizzling 90°. Outside it was almost 100°. (Isn't that neat, the degree symbol? Just press ALT plus 0176 on the number pad!) I was like, Warm at last, thank god almighty, I'm warm at last. Up till about 4:00 pm I was still wearing a cap on my head and socks with my slippers. But along about 6:00 pm, when the sun came over the proverbial yardarm (the corner of the apartment building), the temperature in my living room spiked, my blood began to flow, and my brain started cranking. Yes! I was on fire. Not literally. I mean, my hands loosened up. My feet unfroze. I felt like I could write for hours and not get tired, and I did, I wrote for hours. I researched, I guzzled tepid iced tea, I pondered, I contemplated, I even thought critically! Look at me go, I'm a dynamo.

I didn't finish the paper, though. Eventually my eyes started to cross. It was almost midnight when I finally admitted I could do no more. I blearily backed up my work and turned on the TV. Even dynamos have to zone out sometimes. I tried to hold on to my persona as a brilliant thinker as I futilely tried to avoid watching the Olympics. Neither one happened. (What do they say about try?)

Today is a new day, and just as I feared, I've forgotten all my brilliant insights from yesterday. Sigh. It sounds suspiciously familiar. I think I've heard a student say something along those lines, like, “I knew what I wanted to write, but when I sat down to write it, nothing came out!” (Shock of the ages.) As if the writing process is like a meat grinder. You know, if I just throw these facts in here, and turn the crank, voila! Out onto the paper—plop!: A thesis statement, coherent supporting paragraphs, and a righteous conclusion! (Where can I get one of these things!? Wait, I think they have something similar at CheapEssays.com.)

I spent much of the day studying two chapters in a poorly written business ethics textbook, trying to find some fact or story that would make ethics come to life for my three female accounting students. We are starting week three tomorrow, trudging the career college treadmill, following the syllabus, covering the material, and if I can engage the students in a discussion for more than five minutes, well, that might constitute proof of the existence of god. I'm sure the topic of corporate compliance is interesting to some people, but not to these three. I love scandal as much as the next person, but this book leaves out all the juicy details. So there was a sexual harassment scandal at the U.S. mint? Really? I looked it up. Sure enough, the guys at the mint apparently didn't do a great job of hiding their girlie magazines, and the women got upset. Now there's a story to talk about! What happens when corporations don't comply with their codes of ethics? Lawsuits!

It's warm again today, but not as warm as yesterday, only 89° now, according to the gadget on my computer. The sun has just cleared the yardarm. The entire front window is glowing. Supernova headed this way! Maybe my brain will kick into high gear now. No excuses. I can imagine what my first update memo to my chairperson will look like: I am sorry, I couldn't make progress on my concept paper because the temperature of my living room fell below my optimum range.

From now on, please call me Reticence

While I was waiting for George, my landshark, to fetch plumbing parts to fix my bathroom sink, I felt the urge to blog. Dear old Doctor Blog, always ready to listen, nod sagely, and let me find my own solutions. For free. The perfect therapist. I complained about the plumbing problem in my last session, Doc, remember? My bathroom sink is connected to the neighboring unit's bathroom sink. Earlier today, as I was leaving for work, I saw George pull up in his manly white pickup truck. I blocked traffic to ask him when he planned to come and fix my sink.

“It's still not draining?” he said in surprise. “The other sink drains fine.”

“Yeah, it's draining into my sink.” I said.

“It drains eventually, though, right?”

“Yeah, after about 72 hours. But as soon as you run water next door, it fills back up again.”

“Okay, I'll take a look,” he promised. The tone of his voice said he didn't believe me.

In case you are interested, which I'm sure you are not, but I'm going to tell you about it anyway: I made it through another week at the career college, driving back and forth to the far campus like the proverbial freeway flier adjunct I used to be (and could be again in another eight weeks). Progress has been made. After two weeks, the students are no longer nameless perplexed faces. Now those perplexed faces have names. Luckily for my tired brain, it seems like most of them are named Amanda or Mindy. There's a sprinkling of other banal American names: Tabitha, Nicole, Michelle, Amy. So predictable and hard to tell apart. Especially when they are all obese white females. When it's time to remember names, give me the Ysenias, Astellas, Germans, and Laureens.

Hold that thought. Now George has returned. After some pounding, groaning, sawing, and rattling, with a minimum of spills, the pipes under the sink have been successfully replaced. Luckily he remembered that the sink isn't draining, after he spent some energetic minutes running water to test for leaks. (I wasn't paying attention because I was freaked out by having a man in my bathroom. Aaaah!) The water rose to within an inch of the top edge of my cracked and dirty little sink, a preview of things to come for a lot of rivers and streams if the human race doesn't do something about global warming. Hey, speaking of global warming, you want to see something really thought provoking? Check out this dynamic map of the consequences of rising sea levels. Zoom in on your area, and set the sea level rise to 60 meters. So long, Willamette Valley, hello Lake Willamette!

Now George is in the basement, cutting up pipes, like the Ponce de Leon of plumbers, searching for the mythical clog. It's a never ending quest in a building this old. The Love Shack was built in the late 1930s, I believe. It has a few flaws, which George is gradually remedying: New doors, new windows, and new paint go a long way toward making this place respectable (especially since the cafe opened across the street and raised the bar for the neighborhood). Indoors, my kitchen and bathroom floors are covered in cheesy black and white lino tiles laid by a decorator wanna-be sometime toward the end of the last millennium, but I've still got the original porcelain sinks, tub, and cupboards, in all their etched, grooved, and stained glory. And now he's gradually replacing the plumbing. You go, George, hero of slumlords.

Back to the bland name thing. I'm sure they all think, oh boy, another tired old teacher who can't be bothered to learn our names. The truth is, I try, and for ten weeks, I think I do a pretty good job. After the term is over, their names float out of my head like cottonwood fluff. Bland names are hard to remember. I'm sure all those Amandas don't feel particularly bland. And in their defense, they probably didn't choose to be named Amanda. Or Tiffany. Or Michelle. Really, what's in a name, anyway? My colleague Sheryl and I are interchangeable, and I'm quite happy to answer to hey, you.

In the fifth grade, I would have sold my soul to be an Amanda (ditto re: curly hair). Just like all these 1990s Amandas, I was saddled with one of the blandly popular names of the day: Carol. I have never felt like a Carol. In the 1930s there was Carole Lombard, the blonde beauty, but that was before my time. In the 1950s, my namesakes were Carol Burnett and Carol Channing, two larger-than-life personalities impossible for me to live up to. I should have been named Violet (as in shrinking), or perhaps... I don't know, Shyla. Timidity. Reticence. Yeah, that would be a good name for me: Reticence. Hey, I like it. Maybe I'll change my name. From now on, you can call me... Reticence.

Toward a theory of malcontentedness

I'm emerging from the long, dark, tortured night of the soul. I think. We'll know for sure after I finish the next version of my dissertation concept paper. I think at long last I have settled on my theoretical framework, one that makes sense with my topic and approach. I think. Of course, I could be wrong. Thinking has never been my strong suit, especially as I've grown older and my brain has turned to a pinched, parched husk in which thoughts rattle around like dried-up nuts.

If I'm not so good at thinking, what is left? Feeling? I can't say I'm all that good at feeling, either. Well. Wait, I take that back. I'm pretty good at feeling anger in all its myriad forms: resentment, bitterness, martyrdom, snarkiness, you know, the typical expressions of a chronic malcontent. Anger is sort of a one-sided approach to expressing feelings, though, even I have to admit. Maybe if my life were different, I would be more likely to sprinkle some ebullience, effervescence, and mirth into the mix. Ha. The idea makes me smirk. When the hellish hand-basket freezes over. Ebullience is highly over-rated. And effervescence is for cleaning dentures. Which I can say with some relief I don't yet have.

So, is that all there is? Thinking and feeling? Cognition and affection? Wait, that can't be right. (Hey, I'm not a psychology major, cut me some slack.) The adjectives would be cognitive and affective. So, would the noun forms be cognition and affection? Bravadita will be able to tell me. Alas, alackaday, I'm caught up in terminology these days: social constructivism, systems thinking, expectancy-disconfirmation theory... la, la, la. To stretch my theoretical muscles, I shall now devise a theory of malcontentedness.

I propose that the condition of malcontentedness is a function of (a) my mood (which is a function of how much sun is striking the earth in the vicinity of Mt. Tabor); (b) the number of phone calls received during a day (more is bad, fewer is better); as a proportion of (c) hour the alarm goes off in the morning (not at all is best); multiplied by (d) how much money is in the bank account (obviously more is better); plus (e) whether or not I have posted in this blog within the past two days (level of malcontentedness decreases in proportion to the number of posts posted).

I could write the theory like this:

M =[ m(S) – P] 
--------------------
A ($ + B)

Where:
M = malcontentedness
m = mood
S = sunshine
P = number of phone calls received
A = hour the alarm goes off
$ = amount of dollars in my bank account
B = number of blog posts posted in past 48 hours

For those of you who are trying to make sense of this formula, don't bother. You will be relieved to know I am proposing a qualitative phenomenological design for my dissertation, in which I will be staying as far away from math as possible.

I could never be friends with someone who likes country music

Today I woke up to clouds, and the rest of the day just went to hell from there. George, my landshark, arrived at about nine to continue his work (pounding, sawing, scraping) in the two bathrooms on either side of my burrow. He's retiled the shower/tub stall with shiny white tiles. I know this because I saw an example of his work when I went to tell him my bathroom sink was filling rapidly with milky water. Alarmed, I hotfooted it next door and found him in the bathroom, covered with white tile plaster and grout. It was pretty clear to me that George was washing up in the bathroom sink.

“George, my sink is filling with water. White water.”

“Oh? This sink is draining.”

Duh, dude. It's draining into my sink! I didn't say it. After some hemming and jawing, he said he'd take a look at it—tomorrow. He is apparently in grouting mode, not plumbing mode. I politely admired his tile work for a moment. Then I stomped back to my nest, and in a few moments, the air began to vibrate: He'd cranked his boombox up to some country station. Twang! I would have pegged him for a classic rock guy. Guess we'll never be friends, George and I. Too bad. A friend with plumbing skills can sure come in handy.

Seeking asylum, I went out to the front garden to pull weeds and plant the stringy rosemary my mother had painstakingly rooted herself over a period of several long months. George's full-size pickup truck made a nice barrier between me and the street traffic, but the cafe across the way was going full-swing. The acoustics on this corner are uncannily acute. I can hear everything. How do you like the potatoes? Oh, really, I read that, too! Jeremy, keep your hands to yourself! I had to look up from my labors several times to make sure the diners weren't headed right for me, coming to tell me what to do with last year's collard greens, now four feet high and gone to seed. Add in the frequent 40-foot buses swinging wide around the corner, the occasional pedestrian with baby in stroller, and George's crazy taste in music, and you've got a recipe for a lively morning at the Love Shack.

I heard a familiar sound: the Adventist Hospital laundry truck coming up Belmont, making its way over the hill, carrying fresh linen to Adventist. I have heard this truck for years. I recognize the engine whine and clinking of chains as it trundles around the corner. I never knew it carried laundered linens to Adventist until I found out one of my students works for Adventist. He once mentioned he drives the laundry truck. Today I was curious to see if it was him, but I was afraid to look. I didn't want him to see me wearing grimy grubbies, working in a dilapidated garden, the real me. At that moment a bus came along in the opposite direction; I knew that would occupy the Adventist driver's attention, so I looked right at the driver. Sure enough, it was my student, expertly negotiating the truck past the bus, the corner, the parked cars, and the pedestrians. For a moment I felt proud, like I had something to do with his skill. I smiled. Then I laughed, as it occurred to me that I will be a dusty foot-note to the great things this twenty-year-old kid is going to do with his life. Maybe my words of praise will live on in a letter of recommendation. 


I'm supposed to be working on my concept paper. (Yes, still.) But I also have homework for work. Now that I'm teaching at two campuses, I have to bring work home. Two heavy bags of books and files, one for each aching shoulder. It's like being an adjunct all over again. The homeless, worthless adjunct instructor. There's just too much to do. So what do I do? I turn to this blog to vent to the five people who regularly tune in. And to the folks who stray here by accident, and have actually read this far—(wow, you must have a lot of time on your hands), welcome to the hellish hand-basket.


Now a slippery whiny sound is coming from the bathroom next door. I am guessing George is rubbing his shiny new tiles clean. It sounds like a whimpering dog. My cat is looking askance at me, like, when did we get a dog? I shrug my shoulders at him: dunno. 

And now, to my profound relief, making a late appearance: the sun, or something like it. Cue applause.

Did the utilitarian philosophy just dive bomb my head?

You can tell it's summer because there are flies everywhere. Or maybe it's my lousy housekeeping. A fly is buzzing my head, and my cat is just lying on the floor, ignoring it. I can only hope Eddie (my cat, not the fly, I don't usually name flies), is conserving his energy for a strategic leap. Yep, sure enough, there he goes. Bam! But he missed, I think, or maybe there's more than one fly. A fly remains, lazily circling the room, just out of reach, like a hawk riding the updrafts.

Speaking of flies, no, speaking of hawks... No, speaking of lazily circling a room, this week we started a new term at the career college. I met some new students at two campuses. Both days I talked way too much. That's normal for a new start. What is not normal is to meet a class, and then find out I will be swapping classes with another instructor for the rest of the term.

An instructor I will call Amy also makes the trek to Wilsonville every other day. We are nomads, no place to sit, no computer to call our own. You know, like adjuncts. The main difference between us is Amy is losing her job at the end of the term, and I (as far as I know right now) am not. I won't say Amy has lost the will to live, that would be overly dramatic, but she seems to have evolved past the “Let me help you” stage of teaching into the “I don't give a rat's ass, figure it out yourself” stage. I know she's a good teacher. I think she no longer cares. (And who could blame her.)

Now that I've denigrated her, in her defense I should say Amy was assigned to teach a subject she has no business teaching: Excel. She isn't a computer person. She's muddled through keyboarding, and fumbled through PowerPoint, but it was clear today she met her match. I was sitting with my seven-person College & Career Success class, when suddenly Amy appeared at the door, looking pale and desperate.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“Could you come up to the lab when you have a minute?”

Five minutes later I dismissed my class and went up to the computer lab on the second floor. I eased in through the door and looked around. She had a class of maybe 15 students, half of them out of their seats, milling around the printer. The room was bustling with activity. Amy was helping an older woman who looked confused. Amy looked up as I came in.

“Oh, we figured it out.”

I watched for a couple minutes. Amy came over to me, and we whispered together. She told me she shouldn't be teaching Excel, because she didn't know what she was doing. I mentioned what I was teaching: College & Career Success and PowerPoint, two classes she has taught before. Her eyes lit up. I could tell she would be thrilled to take those two classes, if only I would take the Excel class off her hands.

Part of me was like, yes! I get to be a hero, and then my next thought was, Oh no, I think there are some people in this class who have never used Excel before. Possibly they haven't even used a computer before.The smell of fear was in the air. That could be a a lot of work. On the other hand, I would be down to five preps instead of six, and that would be less work.

And I could get rid of the talking class. The CCS class. That was the clincher for me. Much as I love helping new students get off on the right foot, I really dislike being the “leader” of a class. I can handle “guide,” “facilitator,” or “coach,” but too much talking wears me down to a nub. What can I say. I'm an introvert. Even seven students can seem like an army when all eyes are on me. In the computer class, doing a demonstration is different from leading a discussion. I don't have to talk about feelings—theirs and mine. I don't have to share. I just have to describe the actions needed to format values, or copy cell contents, or absolute a cell reference. Just the facts.

Like a wimp, I told Amy if she could get permission to swap, I would be willing. She was off like a shot. Within three minutes she was back with a look of profound relief on her face. She announced to the class that I would be taking over come Thursday. I waved at them tentatively. They sized me up. And that was that. As I went off to PowerPoint, I wondered guiltily how the College & Career Success students would feel about having Amy take over their class. After all, it's unprofessional to switch instructors mid-stream, as it were. But the good of the many (15 Excel students) outweighed the good of the few (7 CCS students and 2 PowerPoint students). The utilitarian philosophy wins again.

I haven't seen the fly for a few minutes. My cat is lounging again, stretched out on his favorite blue cotton throw rug. Did he catch and eat that fly, I wonder? Is he looking smug and well-fed? Nuts. Eddie always looks smug and well-fed. He could be digesting a fly. Then again, the fly could have migrated into less turbulent airspace, AKA my bedroom. Guess I'll find out.

I'm a blip

In the wake of the various disasters and traumas in the news, I am finding it hard to focus on the trivially mundane, parched, pedestrian blip I call my life. What is there to say? I haven't been in a car wreck (yet), I haven't been shot at (recently), I haven't failed a class (yet)... really, what is there to complain about, you might ask? Go ahead, ask, but be careful what you ask for, because the chronic malcontent always has something to complain about. Whine is my middle name. Well, not really, it's Mary, but don't tell anyone. Whine is so much more accurate. And funnier.

On Thursday we ended a term at the career college. Friday was spent complaining to my colleagues, grading a few papers, complaining some more, and then driving with Bravadita to in-service in Wilsonville, to sit through three back-to-back sessions of peer-produced palaver aimed at making us better teachers. (Did it work? How could you possibly tell?) After which, we escaped, only to spend the next 45 minutes sitting in near stand-still traffic, trying to get back in time to grade a few more papers, maybe actually turn in our grades.

And when we finally made it back to the Clackamas site, we found out we wouldn't be allowed to stay very long—low enrollments means no evening orientation, which means the staff goes home early (those slackers!), which means we don't get to use the copy machines to print out syllabuses (syllabi? No, apparently not anymore), which means we will have to frantically compete with each other for copies on Monday morning. Argh.

Today I was tired. No excuses, just gray skies and foggy neurons. Even after the clouds departed, leaving lovely blue sky, my mental fog remained. I knew I should feel peppier, with so much sunlight, but with all the drama and trauma of the week, I just can't seem to conjure any gumption. The best I could do was take out the trash. Some days, that feels like climbing Everest.

It occurred to me today that none of this so-called life, this thing I think is so important, none of it really matters. In the end, all this crap I have accumulated will end up in a landfill. All my art will molder into dust. All my writing, all these stupid journals, will get dumped in the recycling bin and shredded to make more important things like paper bags or cardboard boxes. No one will care, because I have no descendants to speak of. (Well, I have one niece I don't know very well. I guess I could designate her my heir, but that seems like a mean thing to do to someone I like.) I certainly won't care what becomes of all my earthly crap, because I'll be dead, beyond caring, quickly forgotten. The whole sordid thing I call my life is just a blip in the continuum of human existence.

Just a drop in the ocean of life. Just a few breaths in the timeline of breaths. A couple shuffles on the mortal coil. Carrying on the fine tradition of being born, complaining about how life sucks, and then dying to make room for someone else to do the same. You know, it just occurred to me that this blog might outlast me. What a thought. Long live the blip.

Curiouser and curiouser

Curiouser and curiouser is all I can say. The crazy online university I have been privileged to pay my discretionary income to for the past six years has decided to take away Dr. C., my new (full-time, punctual, reliable, thorough, and trustworthy) dissertation chairperson and restore Dr. G., the former (part-time, flaky, incompetent, untrustworthy) chairperson that I had previously. Huh. Go figure. After all the propaganda about moving to a new full-timer mentor model, now this? I can only presume that means they hired Dr. G. full-time, which if true speaks volumes about conditions at this online institution. If they really did hire Dr. G. full-time, I can only conclude they don't pay attention to and/or care about student evaluations (see RateMyProfessor), and they don't check competency or mentoring skills. In short, they are desperate.

I know all about being hired in desperation. That is how I got my current job teaching at the career college. The program director hung onto my resume for two years, before desperation compelled her to dig to the bottom of her desk drawer for some sorry loser that was so marginal he or she might actually still be unemployed. She called me in on a Friday, and after a brief conversation, apparently decided I met the hiring criteria (alive and willing), and handed me two books. “The term starts Monday,” she said. “Be here at 7:30. Good luck!”

After I read the e-mail about the change in mentors, I thanked the person at the university who informed me of this unexpected turn of events, and in my e-mail I expressed my concern, as diplomatically as I could, while not actually claiming outright that Dr. G. is an incompetent flake. After all, that is just my opinion, based on very few interactions with her over the course of about five months. Not enough data to make such a claim. And really, who would take me seriously if I did make such a claim? I know what goes on in educational institutions when students complain. I'm a teacher, too. It's us against them.

I try to be the kind of student I wish all my students would be: conscientious, responsible, and not flaky. Let me give you some examples of flaky. A flaky student turns in an ethics essay full of cliches, grammar errors, and frothy emotional appeals, and then says, “I didn't have enough time to finish it because it was my sister's birthday.” Or she turns in an Access database assignment in which she tried to save each Access table as an individual file. Or he turns in a test that is half-blank, saying he was up half the night working on a paper for another class. Or he claims his mother accidentally laundered his flashdrive. Or she whines that someone stole all her books when her car was busted into when she was out dancing until two a.m. the night before. Or she asks a fellow classmate to inform you that she has to miss class because she is getting a tattoo.... well, you get my drift, right? Flaky. I try not to be like that. I offer no excuses for my sloppy logic, my bad grammar, or my misaligned problem and purpose statements.

I'm sure I have more to say, but my cat has decided it is time to stop whining. He always knows best. Signing off.

Time to put on my thinking cap

I got the news yesterday. I'm sad to report my concept paper is not ready for prime time. Yet. I hope there's a yet trailing along somewhere in this journey. My chairperson, we'll call her Dr. C for Cruella de Ville, politely smacked my pathetic concept aside, saying I hadn't yet provided a clear line between the problem, the purpose, and the research question. And where the heck is my explicit contribution to theory?

Well, I beg your pardon! After my righteous indignation passed, I calmed down. It's too soon to panic. This is only the second iteration, and it was a complete overhaul from the first submission. It would have been akin to winning the lottery to have it approved as is. 

And it could be worse. My first submission was sent to the Graduate School way before it was ready, courtesy of my flakey previous chair, using up one of my three chances. No chance of that happening this time around. I've got a methodologist hacking my paper to shreds, and I can tell by her polite comments that she is capable of ruthlessness. Hey, I'm a teacher. I can see through thinly veiled comments to the seething impatience below. Like, come on, already, you... you student, you. 


I can look on the bright side, at least for a nanosecond. It is reassuring to know without a doubt Dr. C is actually reading my work—thoroughly. I feel like I've had a colonoscopy, that is how thoroughly. It is embarrassing to realize I have exposed my sloppy thinking to the person who has the power to flunk me. I'd rather display my high-water pants, my granny panties, my mismatched socks, my increasingly luxuriant mustache... anything but reveal my feeble reasoning skills and sloppy wordcraft. Hey, in my defense, behind every writer there is a great editor, right? I don't have anyone but my brain helping me, and on a good day my brain is trying to kill me. It's a wonder I made it this far. Yeah, way to look on the bright side.

I thought I had largely shed my student persona after passing comps, but it appears when I lack conviction, I revert to paddling about in the kiddie pool. If I want to swim in the deep end with the big kids, I'm going to have to put on my svelte waterproof thinking cap. Wait, I thought I already did that. Hmmmm. Well, maybe I need to go down to the hat boutique and get a smarter chapeau, because the one I have is obviously leaking. 


Back in a moment.

Waiting

I had a dream last night. I was following a wilderness path, struggling over mounds of dirt, around thorny bushes, clawing my way along a chain-link fence, finally reaching the edge of a placid lake across which stretched a causeway made of green grass. I wanted to get across that causeway to the far shore, but I was afraid the lake would rise with the tide and swallow the path, leaving me to drown. I followed a group of faceless, genderless people who were further along than the path than I. They didn't see me, but they led the way. I followed them out upon the causeway, running after them along the green grass, my heart in my throat. The water began to rise! They were running ahead of me, appearing to run on the surface of the water. They marked the route. I splashed, I waded, feeling the grass under my feet and the water swirling around my knees. I was almost to shore when the water came up, and I was swimming for my life. I thrashed and gasped, a few more feet, and I made it. I pulled myself up onto the far shore, safe.

How's that for a dream, eh? The perfect metaphor for my dissertation struggle—my life struggle—with a happy ending. I triumphed, albeit soggy and terrified, but I triumphed. I hope I remember this dream later, when I am faced with the pressures of living, working, waiting.

My dissertation chairperson gave me an ETA: feedback by Thursday of this week. My landlord will be ready to tear out all my windows and replace them on Thursday and Friday. Two momentous events that terrify me. I can't change either one. All I can do is wait. So, I'm waiting.

What do you do while you are waiting? Let me guess. You probably get out all those projects you've kept on hold for a time like this, your rainy day projects. Your mending, your deep cleaning, your writing and art projects... now you efficiently set to work. You probably hum while you do this. And at the end of the day, you have some fruit to show for your labor. Or at least some clean cupboards and hemmed pants.

Well, let me tell you how the chronic malcontent waits. I fret. I stew. I muddle around in the wreckage of the future. I seek a new past. I'm anywhere but in the present, that's for sure. I listen to music that inspires me to madness (Associates, the Buggles, Gary Numan, Bill Nelson, Depeche Mode, and of course, the Monkees, because it reminds me of Karen, who died). I write in this blog. I'm so self-absorbed I can hardly breathe.

I know the solution. To get outside, and outside of myself, to do something for others. I helped my mother add minutes to her new Tracfone. I went for a trot in the park. I kissed my cat. I thanked the sun gods for burning off the low clouds and leaving clear, blue skies. And I remembered my dream. Waiting can feel like shite, but it can also be fertile ground.

Finally, at long last... summer. Don't blink.

This week, while I wait for my dissertation chairperson to review my concept paper, I have had time to fret over other things. That's what I usually do, fret. Wreckage of the future, and all that. Except, oddly enough, this week has largely been a fret-free zone. Other than orchestrating a conference call between T-Mobile and Tracfone, other than having the plumber walking through my place twenty times in one day, other than having to empty my bathroom of everything except the porcelain... it's been a great vacation. I credit the weather. I guess I just can't get overly fretful when the sun is shining.

I don't have windows to the north or the south. What I have to the east is blocked by a holly tree (the topic of a future rant). That means in the summer, the Love Shack is cool and dark. I wear a sweatshirt and my usual cap, and socks with my slippers. I wait impatiently. At 4:30 p.m., on cue, the sun peeks around the corner of the building, over the mountain, aiming straight at my front windows. In a matter of minutes, the fabulous shining orb takes the stage and begins to bake the front of the building. It's fairly brutal. It's 89° outside right now, and I'm pretty sure it's over 95° in my apartment. (And no, I don't have AC.) 


The Love Shack used to have awnings, removed a couple years ago when George painted the place. It used to be gray. Now it's taupe. With blue doors. And no awnings. It looks naked. With no awnings between me and the western sun, in May I batten down against the onslaught: portable mylar sun shades hung from cup hooks, then the regular window shade (futile), and drapes. Well, they aren't really drapes, they're actually Home Depot paint drop cloths. Natural color cotton/linen-type stuff, hanging on a thick dowel from the top of the window. It's a wall o' drapes in name only, doing a half-assed job of blocking the sun.  

Right now, the drapes on the front window are glowing a lovely golden color, like a fireball is coming straight at us. I feel a little like I'm in a burrow, cowering in the face of a very bright searchlight. Hot air rushes in through the barely open window. The ceiling fan is valiantly tossing hot air against my skin. The temperature outside is dropping, and soon I will throw open all five of my windows. Later I will go outside and sprinkle water on my parched squash plants. But it will be hours before the air in here cools back down into the low 80s. I have taken off my hat and socks. My skin is exposed. My blood is finally circulating. My hands actually feel warm. I can move my fingers. My feet are alive. I laugh when I notice that it's only 70° in Los Angeles. Eat out your little Hollywood hearts.


Tomorrow I hear clouds will ease in from the south. As I am struggling to get up at 5:30 a.m. to return to work after my summer vacation, it might actually rain a little. Some may breathe a sigh of relief, but not I. I will begin to fret. In the meantime, the cat is sacked out on the floor, sprawled like a shooting victim. He knows what to do in the heat: Don't move. It's siesta time. 

Plumbing makes my world go round

My cat is hunkered under a chair in the bedroom, hoping the pounding and power tools will stop shattering our peaceful morning. I feel like doing the same. My vacation is almost over, and my landlord has called in a plumber. So much for peaceful relaxation. When I opened my bleary eyes at the ungodly hour of 9:00 a.m., staggered to the bathroom, and turned on the faucet, there was nothing but air. Where usually there is a reliable stream of hot water, nothing, only a gurgle, like a mirage, taunting me, as if to say, this is how it feels to live in another century. Or in an undeveloped country. How would you feel if you had to tote that water five miles from a well or a spring? City kid!

Come on. This is the 21st century. I know what would happen if I had to tote water. I'd die. Call me crazy, but I rely on running water. In fact, without the four modern conveniences—running water, heat, electricity, and internet—I'd shrivel up and die. You know how crazy I got when my internet was on the fritz. Seriously, have you ever counted how many times you wash your hands in the course of your day? I tell you, being able to flush the toilet is a gift from the plumbing gods.

A few minutes ago, my landlord George knocked on my door and said, “We can replace your bathtub fixtures at the same time we do the ones in the other apartment. Can we get to your tub?”

“Right now?” I gulped.

“In a few minutes.”

“Uh, okay.”

Gradually over the years, I have remodeled the space I live in (fondly nicknamed the Love Shack) to suit the whims and fancies of one cat. That means any window that has space for a window seat gets one. That means there are chairs placed just ... so, to make it easy to reach the food court. That means there are places to hide, things to climb on, and lots of rugs to tear up. That means there's a screened back porch with a perfect vista point on which to lounge and eyeball the neighborhood. There's even a cloth-covered office chair with a tall back that is super fun to perch on. (I would try it myself if my butt weren't so wide.)

There's a lovely window in the bathroom, over the tub, that looks out on prime territory for monitoring cats, birds, and the occasional stray dog. I built a cat seat, of course. What a marvel of engineering! An L-shaped contraption, all wood, painted a deep forest green, lining two walls while resting on the edge of the tub, and attached precariously to the windowsill by one tiny screw. Surprisingly (because I am not a carpenter), over the years, the construct has held up well, despite the regular pounding of my 15-pound cat's huge pile-driver feet (he's all muscle). Pat on back for Carol.

After George's knock on the door, I spent a nerve-wracking half hour disassembling the room formerly known as my bathroom. (Who knew you could get so much crap into a 5 x 8 foot space. If I had to, I could probably figure out how to live in there. Don't laugh, I once lived in a 10 x 10 storefront. I know what is possible.) It took me awhile to deconstruct the cat seat. It was wedged in tight. I had to cut off a piece to maneuver it out the door. Now it is parked in the bedroom, making that room impassable. But the bathroom is so empty sound echoes. Strange how it looks bigger with nothing in it. 

And here he is now, a big hulking guy named Eli, carrying a wrench. He makes my place seem tiny and cramped. I am reminded again that this is a one-person/one-cat apartment. Bang, thump, and now he's walking out the front door with a handful of corroded metal: my bathtub fixtures! Two minutes later I hear pounding, knocking, and sawing, in the bathroom of the empty unit next door. I go into my bathroom with my camera, planning to document the mess. There are two pipes sticking out where there used to be handles to turn on hot and cold. As I watch, they slide into the wall, yanked from the other side, like the disappearing legs of the wicked witch of the East. Plumbing and pounding and resentment: Oh my!

A shack of her own

It's amazing how much difference a little sunshine makes. I'm a new man. Woman. Whatever. Who cares, the sun is shining! What could possibly go wrong when the sun is shining? I spent the morning pulling weeds in the front garden, navigating the steps (yes, the same steps that tossed my mother like a stick doll, leaving her breathless and broken in the concrete step well), and saying howdy to all the pedestrian strolling by on their way to Mt Tabor Park to blow up stuff and watch the waterfront fireworks. My skin is tingling from too much sun. Skin cancer? Who cares! The sun is shining! I planted some squash and beets that have been languishing for weeks in the shade of my back porch. One volunteer sunflower nodded far above my head while I impersonated Pizarro, machete in hand, hacking at the undergrowth. Look there! Evidence that tomato plants really do reseed themselves! 

It's July 4, my own personal emancipation day. Nine years ago I left a lousy relationship. I packed up and moved all my stuff while he was camping for the weekend with his three teen-age sons. I took nothing that wasn't mine, except perhaps the stray cat. I moved to my present humble abode on the slope of the extinct volcano. I have never regretted anything about that relationship except starting it in the first place and waiting so long to leave it. Only two regrets in almost five years isn't bad, right?

When I first moved, I couldn't believe I had so much space to myself. A kitchen! An entire bathroom! A bedroom, for me? And a living room, a room in which to finally allow myself to live. Who cares if the place is dark, moldy, and drafty. Who cares if the most frequent bus route in the city lies fifteen feet from my bedroom window. Who cares that the bizarre acoustics of this corner allow me to hear everything, I mean everything, night or day. Who cares! No longer was I relegated to one corner, one stinky kitchen nook, one shelf in the fridge. My boxes finally had a home. 


I was slow to unpack, sure that something would go wrong. For months I expected a knock on the door and a gruff voice saying, no, you are too happy. You are not allowed to be that happy. We will have to kill you now. Whenever I was scared and feeling unsure what to do, I would ask Meme, the long-haired cat. He would say (in cat language), “Sleep! Eat! Play! Poop!” I did what he suggested, and gradually I grew to fill the space. 

Now, nine years later, I'm hemmed in on all sides by artwork, books, binders, photos, and 55 years' of knick-knacks, all sitting on shelves I built with my own hands. Some of the shelves are a little askew, not quite square, but they are multi-colored and embedded in the studs of the walls, built to last, built to hold the evidence of my life. I love my shelves. I love this shack. The fact that someday I will have to leave makes the passing days bittersweet. As the landlord begins the strenuous task of replacing all the windows in the building, I can see what will eventually come.

But today, life is good. My concept paper is put to bed—for one week, anyway, the sun is shining, and it's a day to celebrate freedom. Freedom from tyranny of all kinds. Freedom to live as I please. Freedom to be who I am. Freedom to just be. Just for today, even the malcontent is smiling.

Happy Freedom Day.

One person's mountain is another's mole hill, or something like that

You know how when you are out hiking and you see a hill in front of you, and you think, oh, if I just make it over that rise, then I'll be at the top. Then I'll have the world spread out below me. Then I can rest and enjoy the view. You know what I mean? And then you struggle to the top of the hill, and gosh darn it if there isn't another hill in front of you, an even higher one, that you couldn't see because it was hidden by the little one in front?

I just got to the top of the little hill. Yes, I'm pleased to say that I submitted the second draft of my concept paper to my chairperson today. I'm sure she'll have some edits, but for now, the thing is off my plate onto hers, and I hope she's hungry, because she's got 45 pages to read, not counting the annotated bibliography (which I bet nobody reads. I finally figured out the annotated bibliography is a drop-and-give-me-100 sort of exercise, designed to separate the whiners from the stoics. Stoics win.)

So what did I do after I got to the top of the hill? I felt strangely empty. I ran a couple errands in a haphazard, poorly planned fashion, and then I went home and took a nap. I wanted to keep sleeping. My head is full of June fog. Oh, wait. It's July now, isn't it. I guess I need to peel off June and see what barn or shed awaits me on the July page of whatever promotional calendar hangs on my wall. The weather was dull today, to match my brain fog and my mood. You'd think I would be elated, wouldn't you. Well, you would be wrong. For one thing, I'm a chronic malcontent. Elated is not in my lexicon of feelings. For another thing, look at my calendar. There are some massive mountains I must climb. This little hill was a gentle slope compared to what I fear is coming next.

I'm feeling anxious that this dissertation process is taking so long. I essentially re-wrote the entire paper (except for the annotated bibliography), so it was a fairly large undertaking. But there were many distractions along the way: work, cat, Mom... If I worked on the paper 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, it probably would have taken about two weeks. Maybe less. It took me two months of Fridays and half days on Saturday and Sunday. What's that, like twelve days? Yeah, that sounds about right.

I am so tired I can't think. I will finish this when I have some functioning brain cells.

How can I miss you when you won't go away?

Earlier today things were going pretty good. On track. Banking got done with a minimum of effort. People smiled. Laundry got done, all socks accounted for. It's almost like everything got done in spite of me. Do you ever have days like that? Like when all the traffic lights are green, almost like they were calibrated just for you.

Now it is much later. I spent the last eight hours working on my concept paper. Working? Try slaving. Try whimpering. Try pleading to the gods of for-profit education. Oh lord, kumbaya, will this dreaded zombie-like tome never go away?

My fingers are typing so slowly, it's like I'm in a slow-motion sci-fi movie. My head is full of fog. I don't know how much longer I can hold on. Fading... can't breathe.... go on without me...

Really. Go on without me. I've used up all my brain power for one day. I'm on vacation. I'm going to plug disc 3 of Burn Notice Season 5 into my computer and get lost in the world of burned spies and trigger-happy girlfriends. And if that doesn't work, I'm pulling out the big guns. Yep. Stand back and put on your bib: True Blood Season 4.

Tomorrow I will tackle the paper again. For now, it's show time.

All aboard the bus to Point Despair and parts beyond

Whenever I hit a roadblock in my writing, I open up the blog, my cry to heaven. The blog listens and doesn't talk back. Everyone should have a blog or two, for each of their personalities. Oh, wait, am I the only one with multiple...? Come on, you have a nest of mean, spiteful dwarfs in your mental cave too, admit it.

Speaking of personalities, yesterday I conducted an experiment on my six-person business management class. These are the healthcare admin majors, all women in their late 20s-early 30s, who (a) think they know all they need to know about business, having already taken the upper level organizational management class (a scheduling glitch), and (b) think that they will never need to know anything about business, because soon they will be employed at some big hospital, taking orders from a boss they don't like or respect, performing tasks they couldn't care less about, and waiting for the day when they can finally do what they want (hair designer, auto mechanic, photographer).

It confounds me that they would intentionally detour away from their dreams into the bleak corporate world of managed healthcare. I prostituted myself to the corporate world in order to survive, but it was never an intentional life plan! After they told me their plans to achieve their dreams, and bluntly told me (a) they didn't care about the material, (b) the class is a waste of time, and (c) they are only attending because of the attendance requirement, well, you can imagine how useless I felt. I gaped at them like a puffer fish. The first thing I said was, “I don't know what to say.” They all laughed.

So the next class period, I led them in a decision making exercise. Their mission: to decide how they wanted to spend the last three weeks of the term. We brainstormed a list of activities. I was the scribe. Predictable suggestions filled the board: Work on the course project. Skip the last quiz. Have the teacher give us all the answers to the last quiz. I wrote down everything they said, and added one of my own. (Do an activity of Carol's choice instead of discussing the material.)

When we ran dry of ideas, I asked them to vote on their top two or three choices. The winners: Go to the lab to work on the project, and Do an activity of Carol's choice. Wow. I sure wasn't expecting that. (And no, I did not allow myself a vote.)

Hence, yesterday's experiment. I proposed another decision making technique known as Six Hats Thinking, introduced by Edward de Bono. It's a colorful group technique that uses parallel thinking to discuss a problem and arrive at possible solutions. Each participant in the group wears an imaginary hat and assumes a role associated with the hat color. Accordingly, I made table tents with each color: White Hat (focuses on the facts), Black Hat (devil's advocate), Red Hat (emotional perspective), Green Hat (creative solutions), Yellow Hat (the bright side), Blue Hat (the facilitator), and I added one extra hat, Purple Hat (the ethical perspective). I figured I deserved some extra points for the cool table tents, if nothing else. (I should have made paper hats, darn, why didn't I think of that sooner?)

It would have been a great experiment with a different group. First off, two of the six students were absent. The four that were left eyed my table tents with skepticism. The hair stylist wannabe said, “I'm getting a bad feeling.”

“Where is your sense of adventure?” I asked, faking a smile. “Your sense of curiosity?”

She looked at me like I had dirty underwear on my head. Disbelief mixed with disgust. Ignoring her look, I took the Blue Hat tent for myself and let them each choose their hat color from the remaining tents, working off the premise that if you want a child to participate willingly you offer her a choice. (Do you want to wear the Monkees t-shirt or the Bob Dylan t-shirt?) They grabbed and fought over the table tents, and I waited, content to let the universe decide the outcome. When the dust settled, everyone had a table tent designating their hat color, including the two empty spaces where the absent students usually sat. We were a group, in spirit, if not in body.

As Blue Hat, my job was to facilitate each person's role, helping them consider the problem from the perspective of their hat color. I presented the first scenario: should Congress approve a national AIDS database registry to help researchers collect information to help stem the spread of AIDS in Africa? I read the scenario, and then waited. We all stared at each other. They could tell I was waiting for someone to say something.

“I don't understand,” said Yellow Hat.

“Your hat looks on the bright side,” I explained encouragingly. “What are all the positive reasons to create a national database of AIDs victims?”

“I don't know what you mean. I don't see any positive reasons.”

“Do you see any negative reasons? Maybe you can put on the Black Hat for a moment, since Ariana isn't here today.”

“What?”

Eventually we got a discussion rolling. In a few minutes, after some heated debate, Green Hat came up with a solution that satisfied Red Hat and Purple Hat. We were triumphant. I won't describe the other two scenarios, except to say the last one, on whether the Affordable Healthcare Act mandate requiring young people to purchase should be allowed to stand, brought out an immediate and emphatic “No!” from all parties the moment I finished reading the scenario. It seems clear I am the only bleeding heart liberal in the bunch, if not in the entire school. 


Tonight I only have two classes, one of which is another section of business management. The one student (yes, one student left standing) loves the world of business, intends to be self-employed, and slurps up all the information and stories I present. We leave the class still talking. We walk up the stairs still talking. He wants more. He's the ideal learner. He doesn't need me. I'm just a catalyst for learning, not the source. Suddenly there is hope. I'm not on the bus to Point Despair anymore. Somewhere along the route I transferred onto the bus to Acceptance Avenue. Maybe someday I'll make it onto the bus to Hope Harbor. That's iffy, though. It doesn't run nearly as often as the bus to Point Despair.

Time to give up hope for a new past

My friend often admonishes me to stay out of the wreckage of the future. That is always a good reminder. I have a tendency to fret about the things that haven't happened yet. However, I can see the advantage of this tendency, believe it or not, despite being a chronic malcontent. For all you chronic malcontents (and you know who you are), pay attention. For all you Pollyannas, think about it like this: If you know are faced with a decision, it is important for you to see all sides of your dilemma before committing your resources to an action. Ask a chronic malcontent to play the role of devil's advocate! We are naturally skilled at looking at the dark side. We can help you minimize risk. And we work for dirt cheap, too, because we don't see any point in asking for what our advice would be worth. See, who knew being a chronic malcontent had a bright side! Hire a malcontent today!

This morning I attended a workshop on... well, essentially the topic was Looking on the Bright Side, not in so many words. Fewer than a dozen people sat around a loose rectangle of old folding tables, staring out the window, at the ceiling, at the clock. Anywhere but at each other. Some of the people were well known to me, others were strangers. Didn't matter, old friends, new people... I kicked the legs of the table, feeling alien and out of place. I hate workshops where I can't hide out in the back of the room, drawing silly pictures in my journal. I draw pictures anyway, even if I have to be a visible member of the group, but I don't like it. I'd much rather do what my students do, and pretend like I can escape notice. Anonymity should extend to visibility, in my opinion. Like, please, ignore me, I'm not here. I'm not a real person, I just play one on TV.

As always happens when I think there is no purpose or meaning to existence, someone says something brilliant that nails me between the eyes, bringing me back to earth with a thump. Ouch. Busted. Today I heard someone say, “It is time to give up hope for a new past.”

This is me. When I'm not fretting about the future, I am dwelling on the past, trying to rewrite history, indulging in the if-onlys. (See a previous rant.) You know what I mean. Stuff like... If only I had finished college back in 1978, when I had only a year to go. If only I hadn't tried to make money doing something I absolutely despised (sewing), instead of focusing on my art. If only I hadn't spent so much of my life orbiting other people instead of creating my own space. Bla bla bla. The if-onlys get a bit repetitive after I've hashed and re-hashed them a gazillion times. (I'm sure there is a food joke about hash somewhere in there, but I'll let you imagine it. It will be a lot funnier that way.)

How much time and energy have I spent trying to create a new past? What a total waste.

Wait, time out for a song. I can't really express my angst while Michael Nesmith is warbling “Tumbling Tumbleweeds.” Too bad I can't sing, I'd serenade you. Hey, sing along with me! See them rolling along... pledging their love with a song? Wha? Tumbleweeds fall in love? Tumbleweeds can sing? I must have it wrong. I can never understand lyrics. (Like, Wrapped up like a douche, another loner in the night... come on, don't tell me you don't sing it like that.)

As bad as my if-onlys get, though, I have only to think of Mary to realize I got off easy. Mary calls me on the phone every two weeks and reads me excerpts from her journal writing. She doesn't want feedback. She wants the relief that comes from unburdening her soul to another human being, one who won't judge (out loud, anyway), won't criticize, and won't hang up on her. It is hard not to judge Mary. She is stuck in the past, blocked from evolving into a viable functional human by two events that have defined her life ever since. The first is the typical horrific account of child abuse. The second was some harsh words directed at her by her best friends in high school. (She's 45 now.)

Mary has been calling me for almost two years, every other week. At first, I was uncomfortable with my role as listener. I felt obligated to respond with appropriate noises, maybe offer a comment or two at the end of the tirade. Now I rarely make a sound. I play Mahjong, and as I click the tiles, her words become poetry, by turns poignant, stark, riveting, trivial. She's too immersed in her pain to hear how funny she is. She is crying to heaven. I'm just a channel, a conduit, through me straight to god. At least, that is what she hopes. (Since I rarely speak, I haven't told her that I'm a chronic malcontent whose personal philosophy skirts a fine line between fatalism, cynicism, and nihilism.)

Mary is trapped in an unbearable present, terrified of the future while hoping for a new past. Maybe there is another advantage being a chronic malcontent. No matter what I think or feel or say, I can never take it too seriously. If I ever stop laughing at my quirks and foibles, please take me out back and shoot me. I'm counting on you, don't let me down!

Oh, poor thing, you made it up the stairs and everything

So far this morning, in an effort to avoid working on my dreaded concept paper, I've cleaned the cat box, cleaned the human box (AKA the toilet), taken out the trash and the recycling, done a load of laundry, and roasted a batch of beets and a batch of yams. And it's not even noon! Look at me go, I'm a dynamo! Isn't it amazing how productive I can be when I'm avoiding doing the work that really matters. Remember the four quadants: Important but Not Urgent is the quadrant that always goes begging. I'm currently mired in the Important and Urgent quadrant. Yes, all this stuff needs to be done—eventually. It doesn't have to be today. I know what I am doing: I'm procrastinating by being super efficient. And, sadly, highly ineffective.

And before I start mopping the kitchen floor, I am taking time to blog. (Probably there is a 12-Step program for this malady, if I could figure out what to call it.)

Despite everything, even the chronic malcontent smiles sometimes. Two good reasons to smile today. First, today is the second day of summer. The sun is shining just like it is supposed to. The sky is blue, it's 67°F, on the way up to 85°F. Clouds will roll in tonight, according to Bruce Sussman, and tomorrow the temperature will drop like a stone as the clouds unleash rain and wind. But today, it's summer, and life is good.

Here's the second reason. I know life is good because I found a favorite sock I've been missing for weeks. Cotton, oatmeal-colored, super soft and comfy... not much use if there's only one. (Unless I get the flesh-eating streptococcal disease and lose a foot.) But somehow I knew that, unlike most of my missing socks, this one was going to come back to me. And sure enough, today I descended the steps into the normally dark basement laundry room and there, illuminated in a ray of sunshine that miraculously found its way behind the washing machine, was my AWOL sock, resting on the concrete floor in a nest of dust and detritus.

It reminds me of how I got the job at the career college. (Yes, it resembles a nest of dust and detritus, but that isn't what I meant.) I'm remembering how I sent a résumé  in response to an ad for a marketing adjunct instructor, no master's degree required, and after a short period of disappointment, forgot all about it. Almost two years later, I got a call from the program director of the business/general education department in Wilsonville. Would I be willing to teach a couple marketing courses? I was like, who is this? And the rest is history. (I'm still asking, who are these people, the invisible leaders of this bizarre excuse for an organization? But I digress.)


I'm not sure I would hang onto a single sock as long as my employer held on to my résumé. Still, my point is, good things can happen, even if they don't happen right away. 


Last night, my colleague and friend, Bravadita, remarked that someone suggested to her that she try to look on the bright side of life. Notwithstanding the fact that Bravadita's life pretty much sucks right now, the person seemed to be saying that (1) this sorry situation of stress-related rash and unemployment is Bravadita's fault (because we create our reality with our choices); and (2) if Bravadita really wanted to change things, she could, simply by focusing on the positive rather than the negative. 


Well, when I heard that, you can imagine the malcontent in me rose up to defend my worldview. “Ha!” I said intelligently. I was like, let me at her, my fist, her nose, bring it on! Very helpful reaction, Carol, to resort to violence to resolve a disagreement.  


What I realized is that my need to be right supersedes everything else in my world. My need to justify my worldview keeps me sifting through all the evidence to seize only the bits that confirm my beliefs. And it's interesting (to me, probably not to you) that despite the obvious evidence that good things can and do happen (even to me), I still am desperately committed to my malcontented position that life sucks and then we die. Despite the job. Despite the sock. 


The chronic malcontent in me rationalizes my intractable position by thinking (and sometimes saying out loud, to my embarrassment), well, the career college only hired me because they were desperate for a body to fill the empty class. They didn't really care who they hired. Any ignorant sucker willing to work for $17 an hour would do. And the sock, well, it's just a stupid sock. It's not like it's anything important. See what I do? It's like my brain can only see the negative. I've been malcontented for so long, it's a habitual reaction. It's chronic! I'm doomed. Even when the sun shines, I can't enjoy the moment: After I rejoice in the feeling of sunlight on my face, my second thought is: it won't last, tomorrow it will rain, and life will suck again.


Now that I've reaffirmed my worldview that life really is meaningless, pointless, and absurd, I can finally open up my concept paper and get to work. After I unload the dryer. And go for a walk. Hey, it's summer, what can I say. It will be gone by tomorrow.

Welcome to Mt. Tabor. Now go home.

While I was sitting on a concrete bunker in Mt. Tabor Park today, catching my breath after trotting up some steps, a older man ran by me, dripping sweat from his lobster-red nose. He saw me feeling my neck pulse (am I dead yet?) and huffed, “Are you in the zone?” or words to that effect. One runner to another, I guess, or maybe he thought I might be having a heart attack. Sure felt like it.

I guess I'm not used to sunshine. Huh. Go figure. This is the Pacific Northwest, after all. I staggered up the trail, making a beeline for the drinking fountain, feeling woozy in this abnormal humidity, thinking, hell, this is what I call humidity? It sure isn't Baltimore! We are so lucky here. And this is such a great neighborhood. Of all the places in this city, this is where I feel at home.

Feeling somewhat revived after gulping brackish water, I meandered slowly out of the park toward the shack I rent, a few hundred yards away. I paused to peer at the new cafe going in across the street where the old drycleaner used to be. (Surely they must know the previous tenant was a drycleaner?) A sign has been hung: Songbird. Yesterday while I was struggling to insert some coherent sentences into my concept paper, some workers were cutting hunks of concrete out of the sidewalk in front, to plant trees, I presume. Looks like it's really going to happen, this cafe.

Last Thursday, while I was out in front carving a path through the brambles so my postgal can deliver my junk mail, a rustic-looking long-haired man walked by, and then walked by again. He came over to me and introduced himself by saying, “We're opening that cafe. I'm Peter.” He held out his hand. I took it and mumbled my name.

“When are you opening?” I asked.

“Oh, sooner or later,” he replied, smiling. I detected an accent. Australian?

“Huh,” I said.

“You should come over, read the newspaper.”

“Yes, I should,” I replied, thinking, I don't have time to sit in your cafe reading the newspaper. I don't even have time to trim the evil rose bush that is swallowing my front walk. My laundry is piled three feet high. Dust and cat hair drift like tumbleweeds across my carpets. My friends have forgotten I exist. My ass is spreading two inches a week from lack of exercise. And you want me to sit idly in your cafe reading a newspaper?

Last night some guy parked his fancy silver SUV across the street from my apartment. His windows were up, but I could still hear his music pounding. Even though it was 11:00 at night, I didn't think, I just opened my front door, closed it behind me so my cat wouldn't bolt, walked over to his car, and peered politely into his window. His window smoothly descended. He hit a button and turned down the volume. I explained my mission, he apologized, and minutes later, he was gone.

I mention this because it is a harbinger of things to come. This is summer in the 'hood. Once the weather warms up, there will lots more SUVs driven by self-centered assholes (no, wait, park visitors), parked on both sides of the street, blocking the bus route, endangering bicyclists and pedestrians. And now with this new cafe opening up, there will be chatting people with their panting, yapping dogs, sitting in clusters under market umbrellas on the sidewalk outside the cafe, inhaling all the residual drycleaner toxins, swilling iced coffees and enjoying my neighborhood. My neighborhood. Their voices will carry, as all sounds do in this perfectly formed acoustic bowl. And I, sweltering in my little hovel, will be forced to listen to their annoying stories, along with the music, the traffic, and the irritating barks of their little ratdogs, because it will be too hot to close my windows.

I complained to a friend. She had one word for me: earplugs.

I'm lean, mean, mode, and median: Hire me, I'm yours!

Finally the low pressure system moved north, leaving space for a rush of warm air from the southwestern deserts, my someday home. Warm at last. Suddenly life is worth living. Amazing how a temperature difference makes all the difference. (It was close to 80°F in Portland today.) Now I don't have to complain about the weather. I can turn my whining toward my second favorite topic, my dissertation journey. Dissertation debacle. Morass. Swamp. Pithole. You know what cracks me up? That I'm using this blog like a Facebook page. I have two friends, Bravadita and my sister!

I spent almost the entire day, about ten hours, working on my concept paper. That old thing, you say? Yep. The living-dead paper that refuses to lay down and die. I keep beating the crap out of it and still it rises up from its fetid grave to perplex and confound my tired brain. Honestly, it feels like I've never written a research paper before in my life. I'm sure my expression must resemble those of my students, who stumbled into Introduction to the Internet (what's a browser, again?) after my colleague Bravadita's Research Paper class, shell-shocked at the prospect of typing (notice I didn't say writing) 15 pages. With in-text citations! And a Works Cited page! Quelle nightmare!

Yesterday, after all the layoffs at the College, I thought I'd better at least try to look for other employment, just in case, so I uploaded a resume and cover letter to a job opening at a market research firm in downtown Portland. Yeah, rotsaruck on that one. I'm sure (if they had time to even download it) they had a good laugh when they got to my resume. I can just imagine them, sitting in plush chairs in their Gucci loafers and Donna Karan pantsuits, sipping lattes from the machine in the breakroom and making paper airplanes out of the stack of resumes sent in by desperate, unemployed MBAs and PhDs.

“Here's another one! Listen to this! This poor schmuck used to drive a school bus! Har har har.”

Wow. Time out. After I wrote that last line, I almost had to get up and make a yonana. But I'm sick of bananas masquerading as ice cream, so I just took another pull on my current drug of choice: room temperature PG Tips tea laced with rice milk. (I'm a professional whiner. Don't try this at home.) Fortified, I can now continue.

Sending my patchwork quilt of a resume into the corporate world is sort of like spreading my formerly-white-now-gray granny-panties all along Belmont. It's embarrassing. There's just no way to put a positive spin on my work history: I'm a loser. It's clear as day I had my head up my ass my entire adult life.

The phone didn't ring today. But should I actually get a call next week inviting me downtown for an interview, I can imagine trying to explain what on earth I was doing all those years.

“Uh... I was trying to...uh...”

How can I explain that I was under the mistaken impression that my art career would actually be able to support me? Should I say I was following my bliss (leaving aside the fact that it was anything but blissful)? I don't know—the word bliss sounds like I was on drugs the whole time, and I wasn't (at least not that I can recall). You know, even putting the words art and career in the same sentence shows how deluded I was, and apparently still am. Maybe I could say, “I was pursuing a career in the arts.” No, same problem. Nobody but Thomas Kinkade made a career in the arts (and look how well that turned out...guess I should be grateful).

Truth? I don't want a job. I don't want to work. I just want to write and draw silly pictures, read stupid vampire novels, and eat ice cream until I'm a blob. What are the odds my dream will come true? I bet the blob part wouldn't be too hard.

So, now I'm ABD, big whoop, and I think I can stroll into the corporate world and wow them with my knowledge of statistics. Unlikely. Today is a good day, but even on a good day my mind is trying to kill me. My brain is mush from my vegan debacle, menopause, and years of sleep deprivation from working at the career college. I'd be lucky to be able to describe the differences between mean, mode, and median. If they call me, I can only throw myself on the mercy of the universe. And if they don't call me, I can say, “See? Told you. I'm a loser, baby...”